Of Oubliettes & Obligations
by Quiddities
Summary: A look into Basch's time in Nalbina Dungeon and eventually beyond. After almost a year of no updates comes a new chapter! 5/14/10
1. Chapter 1: An Angry Itch

Of Oubliettes & Obligations

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The steel cage was a waste, he thought. His shackles, while bruising and burdensome to his wrists, were ultimately meaningless. Dark, damp, and smelling vaguely of rust and oxidation, his suspended confine could house him forever; it mattered not. No prison could compare to his own self-incarceration, a sturdy cell built of misery, shame, and guilt. Gods, the guilt. It pushed through his veins like poison, replicating and thriving as it flowed.

With his hands tied, suicide wasn't an option. Not that he really contemplated suicide. The reward for his mistakes was an eternity's worth of time to replay the tumultuous moments before his capture, and to see the images once again in his head. Constant darkness provided ample room for the workings of his own psyche. His fallen comrades, his murdered king, and his brother's look of bloodlust and triumph were his constant companions, both flashing and lingering in his vision.

He oft wished for the time. Or the date. Certainly it was selfish, and such knowledge had no worth to a dead man, but his body wanted release from circadian rhythms gone haywire and the sandbags his eyelids had become.

Bodies were curious things, and he was continually reminded of the fact. How he managed to keep growing hair despite obvious nutritional deficiencies was beyond him. On the twelfth day, or perhaps the twelfth week, or month, the strands emerging from his face were the culprits of a particularly agonizing itch, creeping slowly across the right side of his chin. He hadn't the strength to do much of anything, especially not rub against his shackles and find release.

Time passed. His accursed epidermis taunted and agitated him more and more every second. Insignificant sensations were ruining him. After what indeed felt like a lifetime's worth of denying himself, he allowed a groan to escape from the depths of his innards. Initially merely a quiet release, it grew in volume and stamina and eventually became a cathartic howl, ringing and reverberating as it echoed up and down the chambers of the prison. In desperation, he tilted his neck and jutted his chin forward just enough for the tip of his jaw to touch the rotted iron of the manacles around his right shoulder. Gasping and panting as he stretched, it took a good minute to muster the energy to fuel the movement, but his efforts were enough. An immediate sigh of relief indicated as much. He breathed heavily and let his head tilt backwards in exasperation.

"Ugh, I hope you're not doing what I _think _you're doing," said an accusatory voice.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, automatically. You could take the man out of knighthood, but you couldn't take knighthood out of the man.

"My _pardon_? We could both do for some pardon, given our current location. But don't act like I can't hear you over there, you know, polishing the old sword, as it were," the voice continued.

The voice was female. He felt a blush creep up around his temples. Locked away for eternity, and she thought he had nothing better than to...!

"I assure you, my hands are nowhere near my-- I mean to say, I was merely trying to scratch an itch, and it's awfully hard given that --" he stopped.

A bead of sweat was forming beneath his brow as he felt the after-effects of a mild rush of adrenaline. A voice from his own imagination. He honestly didn't expect to have lost his mind so soon.

"Ah. Scratching the itch. I like your euphemism better," the voice teased.

He assumed one's sanity slowly melted away, like a candle, doomed to be rendered a wick that would eventually drown in its own fuel. Instead, it seemed his mental health had exploded and left nothing but ashes in its wake.

"I've been far too forward," the voice started again. "It's not like I can see what you're doing, anyway. I should probably be welcoming the company. Not really the epitome of excitement down here, I'm afraid."

"As good of a welcome as a disembodied voice can give," he answered, deciding to go along with the wave of lunacy rather than fight it. For now, he decided, his mind could have its way with him.

Hello. Thanks for reading! Reviews are welcomed, one and all.


	2. Chapter 2: A Fearful Thing

Chapter 2 –

"Death is a fearful thing" - Shakespeare

Many thanks for the encouraging reviews! Without further ado...

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The continuum of imprisonment went on, undeterred. He hesitated to give in to conversation, replying cautiously, tersely. The idea that he was imagining the entire situation stirred defenses deep within him that he thought were resolute. Years of war and strife had plenty of opportunities to unhinge him, but to let go now seemed to represent a brand of defeat he could never accept. Bound, shackled, broken, his mind was his last bastion of control – he would rather die than lose it, but he avoided neither complications nor confrontations. It was easiest to be blunt about his troubles.

"How am I to know that this is not some hallucination?" he demanded from the abyss.

"I've been asking myself the same thing. Au contraire, maybe it is I who have dreamt you up? You had better be entertaining, Sir. If in fact I am the one who has gone crazy, it would reflect poorly on my mental capacity if you were a dullard," came a playful reply.

"I am no dullard, madam. Simply trying to make sense of this...of you," he rasped back.

"What, pray tell, is your expert assessment?" she inquired.

"There are three options. Either I made you up, or vice versa, or we're both real living, breathing, disgruntled prisoners."

"There's a forth option," she suggested.

"And what would that be?"

"We're both some made up characters...someone else's hallucination entirely," she laughed with a lilt.

He was starting to miss the silence.

"You may truly be insane, madam," he wondered aloud.

Begrudgingly, he began to give into the notion of the situation being reality. Unlikely, but reality none the less. Also, he reminded himself, he didn't think he had it in him to simply will someone so bizarre into being. Perhaps it was just as well.

She would be first to agree that a severe decline in visual stimulation could easily blur the distinction between dreams and reality. The pitch black backdrop before her was a perfect pallet for her mind to formulate patterns and wisps of color. But, as the sting of her own manacles reminded her, she was very much awake, and she was definitely not responsible for dreaming up a full-fledged person. Much less an itchy person, who was far too polite for someone locked away in a high security prison.

"So, what do you look like?" she asked.

"For a creation of my own deranged mind, shouldn't you already know?" he retorted, miserably. Might as well ask his own questions if he was doomed to be a slave to his own insanity.

"I bet you're ugly as sin," she quipped. He could hear a hint of a smile playing upon her lips as she said it.

He wasn't quite ready to carry on conversations, he decided. The situation worried him, so he wanted to try to distract her in the most polite way that he could.

"Do you like riddles?" he offered.

"Only if the answer to the riddle isn't 'a riddle'," she confessed.

"You'll like this one, if you can figure it out," he challenged, attempting to recall the verse.

He cleared his throat and recited,

"_A curiosity hangs by the thigh of a man, under its master's cloak. It is pierced through in the front; it is stiff and hard and it has a good standing-place. When the man pulls up his own robe above his knee, he means to poke with the head of his hanging thing that familiar hole of matching length which he has often filled before._"

There was an awkward silence after he finished. It was almost as if he had just delivered a risky joke to a crowd, and he suddenly felt the pressure to please. The feeling quickly subsided, as he was impressed with himself for even remembering it after all these years. He hoped the silence meant some quiet time for contemplation.

"I don't know which is more discomforting," she murmured into the darkness a few moments after he finished reciting, "the part about it being stiff and hard, or the part about it being pierced through in the front!"

And that was all that was said for a long time.

The body cannot be held by the wrists for very long, he figured, and the weight of being pulled down was only increasing with exponential ferocity. His throat tickled with thirst and his wrists ached for release. Tickles and aches then became burning sensations, and his body began to rebel against the shackles, against the burden of remaining upright. He was not looking forward to the inevitable moments in which his body would beg for death, for he could feel it coming, building in intensity and magnitude, licking his insides, a venomous fire. Hanging there by his arms, it became harder and harder to take in air. His chest heaved; with each breath that entered, barely any came out in exhalation.

Attempting to decipher what exactly was wrong from hearing his belabored struggle, she began to speculate. She bit her tongue for as long as she could.

"Are you -- having trouble breathing?" she asked cautiously.

The only sound was the wheeze of a man battling asphyxiation and losing.

"I can venture a guess," she spoke with deliberation and clarity, "that your body's weight is crushing your lungs. I have no idea how wide your cell is, but you must stabilize your lungs by pushing them upward if you want to live," she urged.

The sounds of the struggle continued. There were several reasons why she did not want this fellow dead. The loss of a conversation partner, (stoic, but somewhat conversational none the less) was one. Her curiosity would never be sated. And, truth be told, her olfactory senses could not bear the idea of the smell of rotting cadaver added to the cornucopia of disgusting smells that already saturated the dungeon. Suddenly furious in her helplessness, she smashed her manacles against the bars of her cage.

"Oh, come on! Live!" she bellowed, wrought with vehemency. There was nothing else she could say.

The urge to die overwhelmed him, tempted him with release and something akin to absolution through ceasing to exist; perhaps at that moment, he would later muse, it was greater than his will to live. The sound of clanging metal and screams suddenly broke through his consciousness. "_If you want to live_," repeated in his head. Flitting back and forth between states of awareness, breaths away from death, the need for retribution suddenly burst like a drug within his soul, filling him with a desire more important than life or death. Through agony and suffering, he believed, there lay meaning, perhaps even forgiveness – and he knew, until he gained any of those things, even in insignificant amounts, that it was not his time to die. Straining his muscles, crying out with fervor and pain, he began to swing his legs towards the cage bars. Able to gain some leverage from hooking his body over certain hanging chains, he greedily took his first set of unencumbered breaths, as if he had never experienced air. His breathing settled. Here, where time suffocated a person, each breath stolen back seemed like another eternity reclaimed.

"You would see me die that easily?" he asked hoarsely.

"No. I was worried you'd die before I figured out your kinky riddle," was all she could muster.

"Have you?"

"Why yes," she avowed, "and the irony was not lost on me. One could say the irony was the _key_ to the situation."

He almost wanted to laugh, but it would have come out like a bark.

"Yes. Key," he emphasized the second word, acknowledging her answer.

So, they talked. She said she missed the feel of fabric on skin, the scritch-scratch sound of quill on paper, the smell of spices. He missed the thrill of a friendly spar, the crackle of a roaring fire, and walking, just walking. They both longed for the warm sensation of sunlight on bare skin, and the thought of soap (which they both agreed, at this point, seemed so far off that it resembled a mythical item of hygiene long forgotten). She missed haggling at the market. He missed backgammon.

"Backgammon?" she repeated, cocking a brow, not realizing neither of them could see it.

"Yes. Not as time consuming as chess, but involving fair amounts of strategy rather than mere chance."

"I didn't think anyone still played, especially not so far East."

"Well, it was first developed in Nabradia," he stated, asserting some authority over the matter.

"Nonsense. It was developed in Rozarria, then spread through trading routes," she corrected.

"Milady, I respectfully disagree--"

"Rozarria." The way she said it indicated a finality to the matter.

"Nabradia," he repeated, not missing a beat.

"Rozarria!"

"Nabradia!"

"Rozarria!"

"Rozarria!"

"Nabra--! Wait! Oh, I mean, Rozarria! Aren't we plucky?" She feigned annoyance.

In the darkness, they both smiled despite themselves.

As a sort of unspoken rule, their conversations tended to dance around personal subjects. Perhaps they both believed that conversation in earnest was futile; that to discuss their situation or the series of events that brought them to this impasse would be too sobering, letting the world outside the dungeon spring back into life and remind them of their stasis. She still vaguely wondered what he looked like, and, while his sense of propriety dictated he never ask, he was curious as to what she could have done to be sentenced to hanging in a dungeon. While neither would have willingly admit it, there would probably be plenty of time to ask.

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Woo-hoo, yeah! Thanks for reading. If anyone is curious as to where I got the lovely riddle from, it's from the Exeter Book (or, if you want to use the cooler and more pretentious name, Codex Exoniensis), an old, old, old, old (did I mention old?) book of Anglo-Saxon riddles.


	3. Chapter 3: A Small Truth

Of Oubliettes and Obligations  
Chapter 3 – Truth is Truth  
"…for truth is truth to the end of reckoning" - Shakespeare

"Are you guilty?"

She asked haphazardly, blurting out the question in a mixture of ennui and impatience.

"No," he replied just as quickly, without thinking, almost to reaffirm it aloud to himself, "No. But the longer I hang here, the more I begin to believe the contrary."

"I know that you've no reason to trust a supposed figment of your imagination, stranger, but I believe you just the same."

"Why, milady, without proof or explanation?"

Shifting her weight and gently knocking at the bars of her own cage, she sighed. "Because of where we are," she explained, her tone reflecting seriousness absent before this point. He noticed her accent had an inflection he could not place. "I wager you were banished here without so much as a thought of an actual trial or court hearing. If you were the Empire, wouldn't you keep the innocent isolated?" She was surprised by her own embittered tone. Finally voicing opinions felt like running down a slope. So many words, like steps, burst out and left her careening towards a denouement.

"In order not to tell anyone anything important, of course," she went on, "To rot and suffer in this forsaken cavity means that nobody will ever hear you. Law has been perverted by this war, and justice has been long buried in blood. Too important to kill outright, we're instead sent here to waste away," she trailed off, her voice low and prickly. She had more to say, but she hadn't heard herself speak in so long that uttering words with such conviction seemed almost foreign.

"I did have a trial," he mentioned suddenly, his voice distant. He recalled the stupor he was in as he fruitlessly recounted his story to ears that would not listen, eyes that showed no remorse, hearts that had already made their decision, trial or not. "If you could call it that," he added.

"Still, it is a luxury I was not given. They're a hospitable lot, the Empire," she mused.

"Care to know the worst part?"

"Tell me," she said, gently.

"Every time I experience what little hours of consciousness I can muster, I realize once again how powerless I am to avenge my countrymen and keep the world from what absolute depravity I witnessed the night of my imprisonment. That," he grunted, and the images washed over him anew, "is what is most damning of all."

There was a lull. A distant groan of machinery permeated.

"You're not powerless. The scales of justice may seem to be tipped away from your favor at the moment, but I'm a believer in life balancing itself out," as she spoke the words, he wasn't sure whether she was speaking them more for herself or for him.

"Despite where we are, right now?"

"Despite where we are, right now."

"You were just saying that we've been forsaken. You can honestly believe there's going to be more to the rest of our lives than imprisonment?" he asked, not entirely sure of how optimism was plausible when one's body felt so defeated in every way possible.

"I don't believe we live in a world where the truth stays buried."

The sound of metal work and chains under pressure became more intense. Before he could really register their impact, he sensed movement near him. A thunderous creak lurched the cage near him backwards and forwards in a rocking motion before it began its ascent.

He thought he heard her voice utter a very un-ladylike exclamation as the steel and iron whirred and buzzed, but by the time he could formulate a guess as to what she had said, he was left again with a lingering feeling of abandonment intensified by the fact that he was now truly alone.

***  
Notes---  
1 - Thank you if you've left me a comment. I am verklempt! You all amaze me.  
2 - The answer to the riddle was a key, in case anyone was a little confused about it.  
3 - The next chapter will be significantly longer. There may or may not be scenes that do not involve pitch-blackness. What an exciting prospect!


	4. Chapter 4: A Bit of Neglect

Another round of thanks goes out to anyone who has been keeping up with this story. I treasure each review (probably more than a normal person should).

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Chapter 4 – A Bit of Neglect

"Self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting." - Shakespeare

For a long time he thought he heard animals. Delirium seemed to be attracting more and more of them; perhaps they were marking their prey? He certainly thought he could distinguish growls and idiosyncratic grunting.

Then he realized that there were no beasts; that _he_ was generating the noises.

Hunger was something that he was used to. Something he could stomach, he joked grimly. The sort of stamina it took to survive long stretches of time on missions had made him a hardened man. He was used to long nights without food, eating little or nothing at all, and making due. Experiencing an absolute depravation of any sort of nutrient was entirely different. Those situations now seemed like they were another man's memories. A bottomless void seemed to have been created where his digestive system once happily functioned.

He tried to distract himself. Really, he tried. Tried to think about anything, starting from the numerous other physical ailments that plagued him -- aching joints, heaving lungs, bruised muscles – to other random, distracting thoughts, but after hours of valiant attempts, nothing he thought about could keep him from the thought of food. Riding with his cavalry? Impossible to do without thinking of their method of transport: giant birds, ready to be plucked and roasted. Swimming in the ocean? Not unless he also wanted to think about fish, simmering, juices flowing, tempting him. He couldn't even think about eviscerating his own dishonorable, feckless brother without reminding himself that his brother's eviscerated organs would probably be filled with food. Glorious food.

Thoughts swam around his head, blending in and out of each other. Catching him unawares, his mind began a descent into a blank, pulpy state. His head rose and fell with the ebb and tide of consciousness, until he let the sensations, or lack thereof, take him.

An icy sensation crept about his temples. Opening his eyes and finding even the dim light of the room to be too intense, he instinctively squinted, pupils dilating. Adjusting his eyes, he realized he was staring sideways at a pair of ornate boots where they met the floor. His head was pressed against the cold base of a dungeon chamber.

"Twenty minutes," an unfamiliar voice commanded before a plate full of what once was food dropped before his ravaged body. He cringed from the sound of the impact the plate made as it hit the floor. His body, by some inherent mechanism, retracted into an almost fetal position.

Clarity came to him as he stared at the plate. He could see what he_ wanted._ What he wanted was to use his shackled hands and uncontrolled need to attack the food. Devour it. Savor it. Hell, he'd even drink the dark, dirty water placed before him.

But he wouldn't. He couldn't. His pride screamed _no, never, who are they to offer me food? Is this their idea of generosity? No games. I will have none of it._

Realizing that he was not hanging vertically, at least for the time being, his body felt a pained release; still hungry, still aching, he could at least just lie there. In a temporary moment of tolerance, his body once again betrayed his mind, forcing him into an inconvenient but much needed rest. He remained there, a crumpled heap, leaving food untouched, until the guard found him again.

The familiar binding sensations of his manacles were what brought him into consciousness once more. The relief that those precious moments out of his bindings had given him began to evaporate. If anything, being away from the chains had now made him hyper-aware of their burden on his body now that he had returned, and even more cognizant of the deepened hunger within him. Presently, however, he didn't feel as heavy with delirium as before.

He heard a nearby rustling of chains along with what he thought might have been sharp intakes of breath.

"Hello?" he asked, tentatively.

"Ah," she took in another sharp breath, "He speaks once more." Again, she was somewhere, like him, suspended in the dark.

"If I may be so blunt," he began, but had no idea where to begin. _Where did you just go? Where did I just go?_ He mulled over questions, but merely ended his statement with, "what just happened?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I was just taken to an ornate manse in Archades where I was given a sponge-bath by none other than Emperor Gramis himself, spun the finest clothes in Ivalice, danced with five-and-twenty men, and fed escargot and poached quail."

"I am serious, milady," he said.

"Really, my good man, what do you think? I've been trying not to die despite the best efforts of guards who think they know how to break a man, er, woman," she said between more short breaths.

"Is it…very painful?" he inquired, uneasily. The idea of a woman being tortured disturbed him. Call it sexist, yes, but as a pseudo-king slayer, he was being given food during his trips rather than lashings. What could this woman possibly have done to merit actual torture?

"I'm a big girl," she quipped, somehow still managing sarcasm. Judging by her retort, he assumed she wasn't in as bad a shape as he thought.

"While I cannot wish you release or aid in abetting your injuries, may they swiftly diminish in pain," he said. It was all he really could do.

"Kind words, more than we can hope to get in this place. I thank you. But enough about things we can't do too much about; what happened to you?"

"I was just taken and offered food. Allowed a moment of respite. It is odd," he reflected.

"That _is_ a curious thing," she replied with what could have been sincerity. She seemed a little livelier. "Now, I mean not to pry, but is it possible that certain forces wish for you to be kept alive for their own ends?"

"I suppose. I refused the food," he added, his mind elsewhere. The boy, Reks, had seen him, or rather, seen his brother, slay the king. Reks was kept alive as a witness just long enough to be useful – so why not consider that he, too, would be kept for an ulterior motive?

"You _refused the food?_" she asked, sounding incredulous.

"Yes," his reply was adamant.

"Then we're in a bit of a bind," she proclaimed.

"Oh, really? And why 'we'?"

"I know nothing about you, so I can only speculate about your situation. I at first thought that you were tossed down here because someone wanted to forget about you – but it appears that I was mistaken. Whoever put you here is keenly aware of what you represent to him, dead or alive. Now I think maybe you're the ace in someone's hole."

He considered this.

"But what do you mean by 'bind'?" he asked.

"You have no idea when you'll be needed, what you'll be needed for – what sorts of things they'll do to you to break you, damage you, make you forget about what your real priorities are."

"You seem to know what those are," he challenged.

"You'll cling to the last, best choice you have– the ability to decide whether or not you live or die, rather than let someone else decide for you. So the bind is whether or not to keep living for yourself or for your enemies. The answer to that is obvious, which leads me to ask: were you wise to refuse the food?"

"You sound like this has been the subject of much thought on your part. Are you sure that you are not projecting your own inner conflicts onto me? I refuse to let the Empire make any more decisions on my behalf. I need what power I can have."

"Our cases are not exactly the same," she cryptically brushed off the accusation, "but it's important to eat. Willpower means nothing if you're running on empty."

"With all due respect, when did you become an expert on such matters? I'd value your opinion much more if you weren't stuck in the exact same predicament!" His tone was harsher than he intended. But wasn't it useless to discuss human nature while on the brink of destruction?

"How utterly obstinate you are! You expect to leave here, supposedly avenge your countrymen, and _protect_ lives when you do not even value your own enough to _preserve_ it!" she spat, chest heaving. It literally pained her to yell and commit too much energy to arguing, so she said nothing more.

The two remained enveloped in the stillness, weak, but filled with purpose.

He did not ignore her words. While she didn't mean to lose her temper, she did not regret her opinion.


	5. Chapter 5: A Forthright Utterance

**Author's Note: **This chapter has a story-within-a-story. Reddas, however, is a special guest-star! And I hear he's bringin' his dancin' shoes! Well, not really. But without further ado…

Chapter 5 – A Forthright Utterance

"I will be free, even to the uttermost, as I please, in words." – Shakespeare

On the matter of guilt, people tend to fall into two groups: the innocent and the culpable. But the terms are misleading, and most certainly are not mutually exclusive. To be given a title doesn't mean one understands it. It doesn't imply ownership; it merely implies categorization. It doesn't reflect the beliefs or feelings of those given the designation.

The man on the floor felt all that he should not have felt. Despite his innocence, he embodied guilt. The shame he felt was almost palpable.

All he could think about the next time he was offered food was how disgraced he felt. The acute awareness of his humiliation and failure made the hunger worse. He chewed and swallowed out of primal need; simultaneously, he regretted his actions and admonished himself for his own shortcomings. As he finished what he so vehemently wanted not to eat, he felt nothing but the desire to hurl the plate at the wall and scream. The last awful morsel traveled down his throat. He felt like – no, he decided he _was_ – a broken, disgusting creature.

He returned to his cage, resuming the perpetual hanging stance with a grunt.

"You're lively today," the other prisoner joked, speaking to him for the first time since he refused a meal.

He could feel the food inside him. It was dripping about his insides, disintegrating and becoming ever more entwined with his body. _Hey, you hypocritical prick. We're having a ball down here. Thanks for letting us in. It's a real party_, the food seemed to say.

"I hate this place," he said, irritably.

"It's not so bad after the first ten years," she said.

"You've been here for _ten years?_" he asked, incredulous.

"Joking," she said.

"Prison humor," he grumbled.

"Well _I_ thought it was appropriate. I'll make it up to you, though. Fancy a story to repay you for the riddle?"

"If you wish," he cautiously agreed. Perhaps it would take his mind elsewhere.

The woman paused, gathering her thoughts.

"_This story begins with a happily ever after. A man and wife, members of a most royal court, were betrothed and resigned themselves to live a life in the country, far from their kingdom and free of bureaucrats and backstabbing. They built a stately home, filling it up with the warmth of their love and dedication to one another. The couple was well learned in magic, so the house and its many secrets were protected by enchantments and spells_," she spoke with a soft voice, filling the empty space between them with words she plucked out of air.

She went on,

'_Husband,' the wife one day declared, her belly ripe with life, 'I am with child.' _

_Soon, a daughter was born, and the couple was wholly devoted to her upbringing. But they very quickly learned that the child had the horrible habit of toddling around where she wasn't supposed to go. _

'_Wife,' the husband would frequently inquire, 'where has our daughter gone?' to which the wife would reply, 'I know not!'_

_They decided to give the child a magic bell that sounded in the event that she roamed too far. But clever was the child, and the parents soon found it ring-ring-ringing each time the family cat went off in search of vermin or birds. _

'_Parents,' said the girl, now growing bolder and more precocious, 'I wish to see more of the world.'_

_The parents reasoned that the child's wanderlust was inevitable. Not wanting to control their daughter, her parents reluctantly allowed her to explore the grounds of the manse and slightly beyond. To make sure that their daughter always knew the way back, they gave her a protective charm, embedded with a piece of magicite, which would always lead her home._

"Enchanted magicite?" he interjected, his voice gentle as to not sound rude, "I understand you are trying to lighten the mood with a fable, milady, but I don't see how--"

"Lighten? I _never_ said this story had a happy ending," her voice quivered. "And what do you _really_ know about magicite?"

Not much, admittedly. While he knew his share of spells, was more a man of arms than magic. So he remained silent.

She continued,

_The inevitable happened. The child ventured too far, as children are wont to do. She reached the shore and lingered to admire the surroundings. Never had she experienced such a rush of open space; this was where horizon lines were born and land kissed sea. Yet something about the scene seemed off to her. She realized she was staring right at an airship, docked along the shore. The grandeur and the realness of it took her, for she had only read about airships in books. Careless with wonder, she walked right up to it and began to climb aboard._

_The girl found herself ambling about the main deck. She made her way to the front, and was staring at the gilded figurehead when a tremendous lurch threw her headfirst into the metal, knocking her out cold._

'_Oy,' she was brought into consciousness, hours later, by a gruff voice, 'wake up. They'll be needin' yer in the hull.'_

_An irate man looked down upon her._

'_A kind offer, sir, but I have to respectfully decline. I must be getting home,' she said in response (for her parents had raised her to be courteous, even when dealing with the most dubious of folk). _

'_It wasn't really an offer. More like an order, if you catch my drift,' he replied, pulling out his musket._

_One doesn't argue with pirates. Especially pirates with guns._

_Nobody had told her not to climb aboard neglected airships. Nobody had taught her how to behave with pirates. Worst of all, nobody knew where she was._

_The pirates sought neither adventure nor glory. They weren't even the boring sort involved in shipping and business in Balfonheim. These pirates traded other things. Things you wouldn't even boast to your best mate about owning. And most certainly not things you'd tell your mother about._

_The girl worked for them as an indentured servant of sorts, as they sold and bartered anything from illegal potions to organs to whole persons. For one thing she was grateful: that the pirates never abused her or caused her bodily harm. In fact, she noticed, the men were more likely to slap each other on the rear end than to come near her._

_In the company of the pirates, the girl's childhood wants were fulfilled. For all her curiosity, she bore witness to the sorts of things that books have the decency to leave out. She learned about airships; how to pilot, pillage, plunder, and parley. She traveled up, down, sideways, and over the world. Yet she realized too late that travels lose their luster when one has neither a home nor persons with which to regale with tales of what one has seen. Her charm was confiscated, and presumably never to be seen again. She would not be returning home. Now was the time for new dreams and desires._

_Perhaps it was the greed of the pirates that made an impression on her, or perhaps the twanging of adolescent rebellion tugging at her heartstrings, telling her to get away, to escape. Since she had lost everything, she reckoned, she should be free to take anything. Growing bolder, she staged an escape. One evening, when the pirates were docked near Balfonheim, celebrating a particularly successful operation, she slipped some sedative herbs into their supply of rum. With alacrity, she gathered what she could and stood on the threshold of leaving. For one last fateful instant, her prying nature beckoned her to investigate the captain's quarters. Briskly, she followed her intuition to the Captain's door - but found a sizable lock keeping his quarters shut._

'_Lass,' beckoned a deep voice, startling the girl as she was making progress picking the lock, 'It'll take more than cleverness and hairpins to open that.'_

_She turned around to find a man being held in a brig, his hands cuffed._

'_Oh? Are you in there because you tried to open the Captain's lock?' she inquired._

'_No. I'm in here because I used to be the Captain. Get me out of these shackles and we'll see to opening it.'_

'_Tempting as your offer may be, I've only got so long to escape. And you've only so much time to gain my trust.' She gazed at him through the bars. Tattered clothes didn't take away from his imposing figure. He sat upright, back straight, smirking._

'_So sure for one so young,' he peered at her through the bars, 'Where are you headed in such a rush?'_

_She stared at him._

'_Don't know, hm?' he teased. The man had a wide smile. His teeth were as white as the pale hairs on his chin and sideburns._

'_Long had I been working on making this ship reputable; but in vain. Some men, after tasting the harvests of success, cling only to one method of reaping it once more. These men relented against any sort of change, turning their backs on me, treating me as a common prisoner. There is no place for me here. I'm going to the proud city of Archades. She is a city of erudition and jurisprudence. You, my dear, have no direction; allow me to act as a guide in exchange for freeing me of these blasted bonds.'_

_She didn't bestow trust as easily as she once did._

'_Tell me how to open the lock,' she smiled crookedly and gestured towards the Captain's door, 'and then we'll see.'_

_He barked a laugh and rubbed his bald head. 'Very well.'_

_Thus did the girl and the ex-Captain relocate to what they both hoped were better prospects._

He realized a little too late that she had stopped speaking. He cocked his head to one side, wondering if the woman's story was over, or if he had just lost his hearing completely (with his body's condition, this was likely).

"Is that it?" he rasped.

"It can be. If you will it. That is the power of the listener; to hear only what he wishes. Methinks you'd rather it end happily," she teased, "I should, perhaps, include a fairy godmother?"

"No. No half-stories here, miss. All of it," he urged.

_The ex-pirate proved a man of his word. The girl, having her taste of travel, was beside herself with excitement at the prospect of having a city to call home. The ex-pirate was in fact well versed in law, and joined the ranks of the Judges of the Imperial City. As a favor to the girl, the now-Judge recommended her to the finest of Archadian academies of study. _

_Time passed._

_The girl was now a woman. Her studies lead her down the path of academia; she taught at the university and researched for the city laboratory. The Judge was now a Judge Magister of high respect and rank, renowned for his shrewdness. They had kept in touch, and along the way, they forged bonds. They did not know, however, that their paths would cross in a very public way. _

_In this day and age, no researcher can claim to make discoveries by his lonesome. The woman was part of a team that, under the guidance of a well-respected, if not slightly loony doctor, was studying very dangerous, very potent pieces of magicite captured during the Archadian advance upon Nabradia. Their progress was slow, but of this they were sure: the stone was imbued with indescribable destructive power._

_The Judge's worries focused primarily on maintaining stability during war. But war is never stable. War, at its best, is diplomacy with attempts to avoid bloodshed. At its worst, it is inexorable madness. War can bring about the impossible and the unthinkable. Especially when it comes to using weapons that are not fully understood._

_The woman understood; at least, she thought she did. Science was easy; it was not all laid out before her, but the answers were there, waiting to be unearthed. She was trying, with promising results, to really comprehend the shards. The actions of men intoxicated by their own power, however, are harder to grasp. _

_This is why she never thought her superior would consider using the magicite in battle. Encourage it, even._

_Outraged, the woman sought an audience in front of the Senate, but the Senate ignored the pleas of someone who could prove nothing, had no time to solidify proof, and who sounded like some kind of barmy doomsayer. The head scientist outraged her most of all; not only did he not listen, but didn't seem to care either way. He thought using the nethicite would be some kind of grand field experiment. Driven almost to madness with purpose, she hid any and all of her research and made a last-ditch effort to steal the nethicite._

There was a silence unlike the one before. The previous pause had been planned, calculated. This one seemed to leave the air both expectant and uneasy, now that the woman's tale entered the realm of his current events. Slowly, like clouds brewing for a storm, he had begun to recognize the woman's words for what they really were. Lightning struck; he realized this was her life's tale rather than some fable meant for leisure.

"What befell her?" he asked, his voice a low murmur. He needed to let her know he hadn't lost interest.

"She failed," she said dejectedly.

It was true enough. He had been the one to tell King Raminas and his advisers that Nabudis had fallen. The magicite must have played its role, and it seemed the woman had attempted to prevent it.

"And was cast off to Nalbina?" he wanted to be sure.

"Cast off to Nalbina," she echoed, "before she could warn the Judge, which would have been the sensible solution to this madness."

His brow furrowed, newly formed scar still tender. There were still questions.

"Why then, do you tell me?"

"Stories can either outlive their tellers or die along with them. I prefer the former, even if it lives on inside a dungeon in the heart of a detainee. Through just telling you, I seek partial absolution. You have been a most gracious audience," she said with a sincerity that left him even more taken aback.

He wanted to respond, but had no time to react; the metalwork keeping his cell aloft had begun laboring in order to lift his cage higher, higher, into harsh and unknown heights.

**Author's Note 2:** **Thank you, reviewers!** Kissychan1101, Amitra, SharperImage, Static Lull, EmeraldxFields, Banane, Laguna's twin sister, Songlian, and Dark Wink (as of Jan 23)!

Extra special gold stars to Static Lull and SharperImage for beta work.

Thanks also to Brett, James, Cindy.


	6. Chapter 6: A Virtuous Fall

**Author's Note The First: **Hello, readership! I am sorry it has been *checks * er, around 6 months. Hopefully whoever is still reading this dusty old yarn doesn't mind the wait. Without further ado...

Chapter 6 - A Virtuous Fall

"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." - Shakespeare

* * *

He is free.

Life teems around him, reaching out to him, welcoming him as part of its sweeping rhythm. He takes a step, bare feet kissing soil and fallen leaves, and moves forward. One step becomes two, then three, and soon he is running along a path of his invention. He can feel the pendant beneath his shirt bounce in tandem with his pace. Leaves and branches caress and graze his bare shoulders as he tries to use the last remaining slivers of daylight.

"Noah!" he cries, eyes scanning the forest. Screaming won't help, he decides. Dusk is spreading across the wood with a liquid quality, embracing the curves and edges around him. The trees twist and dance wickedly as they form a natural barrier against him and the light. Their branches reach up, like hands grasping a sky they will never be able to take hold of. He breathes true and unfettered as he runs. His stride is somewhat more energetic than he can recall. It feels seemingly newer, as if he is a fledgling creature running fast merely to prove that he knows how.

He slows down. He can't outrace the sunset.

"Noah." He repeats the name lamely to himself.

Twilight descends. He can't shake off the familiarity of his surroundings. When he lifts his hand to his face, letting his palm slide across his brow and working smooth fingers through unruly tufts of golden hair, he stops. He feels his brow again. There is neither scar nor aching pain. Uneasily, he reaches his other hand up to feel his face; the smoothness of his skin alarms him. He is suddenly acutely aware of his lack of facial hair; not even hints of stubble bristle along his chin.

He walks on. Moonlight guides him, whispering the way past curtains of foliage and tufts of moss. Entering a glade, he spies a pool of water looking as stationary as it does innocuous, and he slowly cranes over its surface.

His lips part as he stares down at himself, who, from the reflection in the pool, stares up at him with equal incredulity. He looks not a day older than fifteen. Too often has a man has seen his reflection looking more aged and weary than it should be, but to see the reverse is, arguably, even more unsettling.

He keeps his eyes locked on those of his reflection, afraid to break the gaze and be forced to study his younger features at length. His knees drop and his hand extends, trembling as it hovers centimeters from his other-face. He is careful not to disturb the still surface of youth. This fragile liquid image scares him; it reminds him of Noah.

Three things happen at once.

First, his pendant slips out of his tunic.

Second, he unconsciously speaks his brother's name to the reflection in the pool.

Third, as he watches the reflection in the water mirror the movement of his lips, he sees, instead, that it is mouthing _his_ name.

_Basch_, the lips articulate, and before he can react, a hand reaches up from beneath the water, grabs him by the pendant, and jerks him down, neck first, with tremendous force.

He is drowning.

No; he was dreaming. Yet wetness, darkness, and terror surged against his body. What would have been a moment taken to piece together the logic behind dreams and slowly acclimate to the world of the conscious was replaced by a hand behind his neck forcing his head up, down, up again into a pool of water. His hands were behind his back; truly, he would have been more surprised were his hands unbound.

"They told me you looked thirsty, Basch. I told them I'd be more than happy to see to your needs," a voice called from behind his head.

Basch hadn't properly registered his brother's voice in years, perhaps in decades. His voice, much like their near indistinguishable faces, was like his, but not. There was a certain depth present in his own gruff timbre absent in his brother's tone. He imagined, instead, that his brother's voice resonated with malice deadlier than venom.

"Noah." The way Basch said his brother's name sounded nothing like it did in his dream. His own voice scared him. He sounded empty and careworn. His mouth still open, he barely finished his thought before his head was submerged in water for the umpteenth time.

Noah jerked Basch's head up tightly and moved his mouth close to Basch's ear.

"You've no _right_ to use that name." His brother whispered with such fervent anger that Basch almost felt only pure emotion cutting at him rather than audible words. His face met water once more and lingered beneath the surface. Basch's eyelids flickered at the impact. After resurfacing, Basch became more aware of air, damp with filth and misery, and the walls and ceiling of no doubt one of many torture chambers.

"Let us start anew. And you can perhaps address me respectfully as Judge Magister Gabranth," he warned, "Yet... perhaps I myself should speak to the dead with more reverence," he added, words soaking with spite.

"I've had my fill of riddles," Basch groaned. Was he dead? Strange, it felt just as uncomfortable as it did being alive. He did note Noah's emphasis on using their mother's maiden name. Basch felt like it had now somehow been profaned.

"Funny, that's what the woman locked down there with you said," Noah prompted.

With precision borne mostly out of exhaustion, Basch held back any and all reaction. Whatever Noah's intentions were, whatever responses he was trying to provoke, he unwittingly affirmed that after asphyxiation, starvation and nightmares of being twenty years younger, he could still discern between dreams and reality. For that, he would play into Noah's goading, just a bit.

"Woman? There's naught down there but shadows and regret," Basch said calmly.

"How, with your hands tied in so many ways," Noah tugged at Basch's bindings, "do you still adhere to your ill-formed delusions of honor? Covering up for criminals doesn't suit you," Noah finished as he moved forward to face Basch and looked at him full on. He wasn't wearing his Judge's helmet. Basch felt as if he were staring into a cruel, savage looking glass.

Basch spoke, so he would not have to think of who he was looking at. "You're the one playing games, not I."

Noah peered keenly at him, his gloved hand tracing the rim of the pool of water he was using for torture. "You are mistaken. Like or not, you and I, we are but pieces on someone else's game-board. Perhaps we can't move ourselves, but we do move. And there _are_ rules. Rules you _changed_ the night you became kingslayer," Noah said with a knowing smirk.

"I should say the same to you," Basch spat. Again, with a twitch, he was pushed beneath the surface of the pool, and with another pull, his head was brought back up abruptly.

"What's done is done! Can you not see it? Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg no longer exists. The Marquis himself announced your execution! You will not even be rendered anathema. You will be a nonentity! Tell me now, is this the price of loyalty to a fallen kingdom? One that fell by your hand, no less," Noah splashed water onto Basch's face, as if he needed it.

"Worth more than fealty to despots tainted by blood and deceit!" Basch shot back. It was uncomfortable talking while water he couldn't wipe away slid down his face.

"I have my loyalties. Trust that they are better placed than yours," Noah said, a quiet edge to his voice. "I thought you might find it sweet that your own kin should be the one to tell you of your death sentence."

"The manner of delivery is an odd sort of courtesy," Basch replied, eyeing the water. It seemed strange that he was to die; after that mock trial they gave him. He couldn't even remember their faces, whether the court was Archadian, Dalmascan, or Bhujerban. It didn't matter now.

"You would do well to think on the news. A precarious balance hangs between us all. Archadia, Rozarria, Bhujerba. I am not sure who will be the one to administer the Empire's justice, but it must be done. The Marquis did what he thought proper, as will my lord Vayne," he paused, "as did you." His last statement seemed almost earnest.

Or perhaps not. Basch was tired, so tired.

For an instant, their eyes met. They lingered. Basch looked, really looked at his brother. The moment unraveled before them, letting withheld emotions flood into the vastness between them. He felt a green haze cloud his view, echoes of his dream diffusing into his comprehension, memories of Landis and misplaced hope laid bare. He saw in Noah vestiges of their mother. The same slight cut of her cheekbones. Her elegant, but sad eyes. He wondered if Noah saw the same things when he looked into Basch's fractured visage. She would have hated seeing them like this.

Noah's stern expression seemed to belie similar sentiments, a slight quiver in his brow hinting that he, too, felt awash with feelings he hadn't considered in twenty years. Had this man not come from the same place as he did? From the same mother's touch? Had they not shared the same laughter, adventures, and childhood? In their past there remained a history and life that neither oaths nor empires could ever touch, that war would never erase. They seemed further apart now, sitting inches away from each other, than they ever had living separately in two different lands.

"To play against kin was never my wish, brother," Basch said, finally breaking the moment.

But played they were, dice cast out by an unfriendly hand onto a playing board where they didn't belong.

"Then I am sorry you have lost," Noah said evenly, but Basch saw unmistakable grief in his eyes. With one final look shared between them, Judge Magister Gabranth asked the guards to take his brother back to his cage.

* * *

**Author's Note The Second:** Gabranth and Basch deserved a little more than the few scenes they shared. I think that perhaps the hate they felt for each other was so intense that it became almost indistinguishable from their love, and that didn't get explored enough. In-game, Gabranth is, in fact, surprised to see Basch alive (he asks him, plainly "Sentenced to death, and yet you live. Why?") which reflects how little Vayne really trusts him, I suppose. Or maybe he was just playing dumb? I considered different scenarios when writing this, and I think their conversation remains pretty canonical.

Anyway. Obviously we all know Basch makes it out (or, as Vaan annoyingly reminds us, "BASCH LIVES!"). But there remains that pesky female . . . We'll see what becomes of her next chapter, since (obviously) our protagonists find only Basch alone in his prison.


	7. Chapter 7: A Brief Candle

Author's Note The First: Hello. If you are here because you've stuck with this yarn since the beginning, I salute you. I realize it has been many months (cough) since an update, but I think that this chapter will have been worth the wait. I will not say much more about it until the end of the chapter, so I will meet you down there!

Without further ado…

* * *

Of Oubliettes & Obligations: Chapter 7 – A Brief Candle

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow" - Shakespeare

"I'm going to die." He said it simply, resolutely, the culmination of all the disquietude that had been brewing within him.

Voicing it aloud gave it a different level of severity. A soft shift of cloth and rake of metal on metal detected by his keen ears indicated another presence. It sounded as though the other prisoner was pulling herself up, propping herself against the edge of her confine.

"You are sure?" she asked, sounding low and cautious.

"Ondore has decreed it. A Judge Magister informed me it is to be so," he said, not mentioning that the same Judge Magister was his brother.

"I do believe," she said, "that we are well past the time for avoiding certain subjects." She sounded closer somehow. "Speak frankly. You need not bear this alone."

But he would _die_ alone, he thought. The truth burned in him, brimming, almost too intense to be let out. Had he the chance, he would have stood atop Mt. Bur-Omisace and shouted his woes into every crack and corner of Ivalice. Yet how different could it be to speak the truth in this forgotten place? At least here, their conversations, like thin, brittle threads, spun them together, with potential for solace in every weave.

"My name is Basch fon Ronsenburg," he said, finally breaking anonymity, "and I have been framed for the murder of my sovereign."

He went on, "I was born in Landis. I lived with my mother and my brother, my twin. 'Twas a good life. We grew up the way any brothers did, with an eye for mischief and as each other's confidante. During my fifteenth year, our Republic was invaded by Archadia," he continued, waves upon waves of words scattering, dissipating into the oubliette, into the sky and earth and cage that held him. He pressed on, "Our family was one of many that had to endure the hardship of occupation. But endure it we could not. My mother developed a crippling disease. We couldn't move her; the nature of her affliction didn't allow it. Noah - my brother - wanted to stay, thinking perhaps the Archadians could help. I saw things...differently. Noah would tell you I fled. I would tell you I saw Archadia's forces as nothing more than oppressors and conquerors, so I sought aid elsewhere. I saw hope to the west, in Dalmasca. When I reached Rabanastre, I sent him a missive. When he replied...when he replied..." he could not go on, and let out instead a stifled sort of strangling noise that barely left his throat. He was only able to clear it with some effort.

The stillness as he spoke made him so aware of the sound of his voice that, at points, he wasn't sure whether the void was speaking aloud or he was. It wasn't like the woman's tale, which had sounded practiced and careful. It was a purging.

"There was nothing left for me to return to. Thus did I stay in Rabanastre. I joined the order of Knights. It was quite unlike the village of my youth. 'Twas a thriving city, somehow surviving against all odds in a harsh desert." _Much like myself_, he thought, _until now_.

A question floated to his ears, "What of your brother?"

"Her...passing," he began, unable to call his mother by name, "sundered our relationship so wholly that we remained on our chosen paths, he in Archadia and I in Dalmasca, for twenty years."

"Until the night you were brought here?" she asked.

"Aye."

Where he found the strength to speak he did not know, but he finished his tale, explaining the machinations that brought him, unwittingly, to Nalbina. All of it – Raminas' assassination, Reks, Gabranth's ploy.

"Do you think, still, that he spoke truly?" the woman asked. "About your – your sentence?"

"I do not think he has reason to lie to me," he offered.

"Captors have every reason to lie to prisoners, kin or not."

He wondered, then, about death. Was it really another living, breathing person's right to decide when another's would end, or was it an inexplicable force guiding their actions on behalf of another, higher power? A soldier's life was a gamble with every swing of the sword. A soldier's life was a dance of blood, led on by the beat of the blade, of life and death, and he found it arrogant for anyone, even his brother, to decide when or where death should come to claim a person. No, he decided, it was nobody's rightful place.

"Do you hear those sounds? The clanging of this prison?" she asked.

"Aye."

"The prison runs, I believe, as does a clock - cogs turning, pendulums swinging. Here, they think they can control a person's destiny, a person's life, like things they can crank up and let work within their walls. But even if you break a clock, time remains unbroken," she said.

"What mean you to say?" he asked. He was tired and confused and beyond metaphors at this stage of his incarceration.

"I'm really not sure. My optimism is clearly affecting my brain. Maybe I've finally gone mad. Actually, I know I am. Forgive my shoddy analogies," she apologized. "Maybe what I'm trying to say is, when we escape, we should buy a new clock. I miss the feel of time passing on my own watch."

"A grandfather clock," he said, adding to the absurdity.

"With a little chocobo that swings out at the hour, every hour," she said, not sure whether she was on the verge of tears or laughter.

"You've my word. In another life," he promised the darkness.

He waited for Death. Yet Death, it seems, runs by no clock of our devising. He was weakened and in darkness still, but alive. Instead of a visit from Death, two others, who were destined to set more than clogs in motion, entered the oubliette.

In the middle of one of his moments of personal rumination, he heard the shrill sounds of the chamber at work. Eventually he heard human voices, though they had naught to do with him, or so it seemed.

"Well met, Solidor," the woman called out above him, "have you come all the way here to give me a pardon? You truly are a gentleman. And oh my! Who is _this?_ Has the image of Nalbina Dungeon been diminished thusly, that it's seemingly acceptable to bring children? I'm afraid I'm fresh out of parlor tricks for your young companion."

"Were I but here for that purpose. I'm merely showing young Larsa the dungeons, as part of an introduction to Archadian Law," he said. "I find that civic duty is a responsibility best introduced early."

The speaker had a very refined cadence which cut like a blade. If there was another person, this Larsa, he was not ready to speak.

Vayne spoke again to the young boy, "This is the oubliette. Political prisoners reside here, awaiting judgment from the council you and I visited last week."

"Ah," she said, a slight sound escaping her lips, "and it is my judgment that you bring today, is it?"

"It is. By the Order of the Judge Magisters of Archadia and the Imperial Senate as well as a mandate by the Emperor, you have been sentenced to -"

"How simple you make it sound," she mused, apparently unaffected. "Tell me, did Cidolfus parade around the Senate, pretending to talk over his shoulder to someone who is not there? And with _him _as the key witness against me, I am still considered at fault? Did Larsa have the pleasure of watching _that?_"

"Do not make it seem as if evidence was based on word of mouth and witnesses alone. You know as well as I that tampering with government files is an offense too grievous to forgive. Doctor Cid mentioned somewhat about having anywhere from six months to a year's worth of research to make up now that he is bereft of what you've either hidden or destroyed. Why, the damage to the Experimental Magicks wing alone is enough to condemn you twice over. And still you proclaim innocence."

"Do you presume to teach me of innocence?" she cried, voice crackling with outrage. "The Mist consuming Nabudis runs thick with blood that you and Cid have spilled!"

He appeared to consider the statement, for Basch sensed a pause. "Judge Zecht is the one to ask about Nabudis, if he is ever seen again. But better one incident at Nabudis than three times as many via airship and bombings spread out across Ivalice over the course of years. Over decades."

Basch heard the woman spit, presumably at the ground in her cage.

"This was your idea of mercy? Such selfish games you people play. You and Cidolfus had no idea what would happen and didn't give half a damn about the consequences. Zecht was right to run."

"Let me make myself abundantly clear. What has passed, has passed. The shard was used and it cannot be undone. See how Dalmasca consented to peace, knowing the price of another incident."

"You killed the dream of two lands by massacring one and are swallowing the other whole. I don't know which is worse. You disgust me."

"Larsa," he said, apparently ignoring her words, "see how like a viper she spits poison. Criminals show their true natures when they are cornered. They direct their guilt elsewhere, so as to diminish their blame."

"Bold words from the man whose House crest is a depiction of two dueling _serpents_," she responded. "More fitting still, as sibling rivalry among your kin nearly tore the Empire in two."

"You would do well to hold your tongue as to the matter of my family," he said, a particular note of hostility present.

"You speak as though things are going so well for me right now," she remarked. "I wonder - does your younger brother's introduction to Archadian law include learning about _fratricide_?"

"Larsa," Vayne said, ignoring the woman again, "Leave us for a moment. I will meet you in the outer chamber."

Presumably, the young boy began to walk away, for Basch heard the woman call out to the boy one last time.

"Child! My life is forfeit, but you are still free! Free to doubt! I hope the Gods have blessed you with better sense than your brother to see that war is destined to have no true winners. If you want answers, follow the Nethicite!"

Whether or not the child had left, and whether or not her words had reached the child's ears or heart, Basch knew not. All he heard then was the soft, lethal voice of Vayne Soldor.

"I know that you have been more than honest, so allow me to be equally blunt in return. Your sentencing, where I left off, was this: you will be here for the rest of your life."

"Not good enough to warrant a death sentence, am I then?" she called, not hesitating after the verbal blow.

"My lady is too quick to judge. I'm a man of the people, I'll have you know. Which is why we're moving you to the open chambers," Vayne said, and Basch could swear he was hearing the words emerge through a tight smile, "A fitting place for your impertinence and desire to talk nonsense at length. It has been a long time since we had a woman prisoner and the men, I think, will enjoy your company. As for death, I can only hope that the other prisoners will be courteous enough to give you sweet release before you start begging for it."

This did give the woman pause; or so Basch thought. Though what answer she could have given, he knew not. All he knew is that he felt sicker than he had since the incident with the food. He wanted to cry out in rage – but to what avail?

Vayne left without another word; the man had said more than Basch expected – or needed – for one lifetime.

Their last conversation, laden with an urgency neither of them expected, was as swift and absurd as the ones before it.

"I can think of one more thing I miss," she started.

"Oh?" he grunted from between still-raised shoulders and through eternal fatigue.

"When I lived in Archadia, I would sometimes go to a man in the lower city who would read my cards. He had the most beautiful hands," she mused. "Calloused, careworn... I would have liked to have him read for me one more time."

"But are you not woman of science?" he pointed out, "and, if you'll forgive me for saying so, the future seems certain, here."

"Science, divination. What do both aim to tell us? Present, past, future. Both would show you things you really already know," she replied, "conclusions that just require a different set of circumstances to believe."

He would have to consider such an idea. He could sense, somewhere in his weak, aching self, that there was precious little time left to just think, to just be. It saddened him to his core.

"Say he were to read for me," he began, not really realizing what he was about to say. "What would he see? What do you see?"

A small lilt of a laugh, resembling the ones she had emitted before and perhaps the last of her laughs he would hear, came in response. "You, my friend, are the Hanged Man."

The Hanged Man?

A curious sound emerged from Basch's being, out of his chest and into the chamber, groaning but still lightning-quick. It was a labored laugh, but it was a real one. Had he spare tears, he would have shed them in bittersweet amusement.

"I could have told you that!" he called.

"Not so," she said, with a bit of pride. She changed to a different, deeper tone. "Don't take it too literally. The Hanged man is no victim. The Hanged Man is a vision of sacrifice. He would happily cast himself out for his fate. He smiles at his oppressors because he possesses a precious gift."

"What gift is that?"

"A cause," she answered. "One that he is willing to risk his entire existence to uphold."

"What befalls him?" he could not help but question.

"Depends on the reading. If you view it badly in the context of the rest of the cards, it means a loss of faith," she sounded like she was shifting her body around to edge closer to where he was hanging. "If well-aspected, however…it is his tormentors who will ultimately suffer."

Perhaps she was saying this to console him; perhaps it was her way of providing comfort. "Would that I could give you some sort of reading, in return," he admitted. "Could I?"

"Who would fault us for trying, here? Close your eyes," she said. "Think of me, and seek the first image that comes to your mind."

He did, though he did not have much to go on. It did not take him long to come up with a thought, an image, but he wasn't sure if he would strike true.

"A gear," he stated. "We're surrounded by the blasted things." Similar to when he had recited that first riddle, the anticipation of being well-received suddenly mattered. Funny what could affect a man while on the brink of facing his own mortality.

"Oh," she replied, the vowel sound hanging for a moment. "Oh," she echoed.

"An ill omen?" he asked, caution and embarrassment ready to seep in.

"No. I know what it is," she wanted to sound assuring, but he could not tell what her purpose was. "It's the Wheel of Fortune."

Almost as soon as she uttered the words, the machinery around them launched into motion, beginning to spin, releasing a screeching clash of moving parts. They both knew what it meant. For one of them, those sounds indicated a stark finality. But for whom?

"All things pass," she spoke into the whirling abyss of metal. The sound of her voice hit his ears, but he did not know if it was a cry, or a sigh, or a song, for it mingled into the roiling of the oubliette.

When his cage did nothing more than sway in response to the chaos around him, he knew, irrevocably, what was occurring. That it would not be him, not this time.

"No," he said. It felt like a whisper; it could have been a yell.

Forces pulled them apart – like gravity or magnetism, uncaring and decisive. As they parted, another more pressing thought hit him. Too late it came, and it left his lips on its own accord, a futile utterance.

"Your name!" he howled into the clamor. "Your name!"

He heard a reply, strained and desperate, though it was an echo of what he had hoped to gain. What met him was sound of her repeating vowel sounds as she had done moments before. _Oh, Oh, Oh_.

What he would have given to have stolen it before she had left, to have plucked her name out of the unkind cavity he had been cast into. He could have given the stranger more reality, more meaning than he had already gleaned. Yet such things were not to be. Only one companion awaited him now: silence. Impartial, thick, and all encompassing, it enveloped him like an unsought cloak, one he would have to forcibly accept.

The wheel came to mind; perhaps she would have said it is the way of things to cycle, to change. That in the turning of the gears there was wisdom, life to death, death to life, time ever flowing.

Alone he stayed in the oubliette, the hanged man, swearing never to forget himself, until the wheels of fortune called upon him one more.

* * *

Author's Note The Second:

Well, here we are. I'm sure you're wondering – is that it?

Short answer: No.

The original purpose to this story was to answer a question that I thought was a logical hole in the game – how does Basch survive for two years, fixed and cuffed like that? Because he needs to eat – and nobody can hang like that for too long without suffering grievous bodily harm. So I attempted to answer my own question. In the process, I wanted to examine Basch and Gabranth's love/hate relationship, how it was that the nethicite shard got to be used as a result of the Archadian war machine, and how twisted Vayne really can be when it comes to the simple matter of life and death and messing with poor Basch's head. The OC helped fill in some of those gaps, in her own way. (And yes, she does have a name.)

Anyway, this is not the end. However, this _does_ conclude scenes taking place in the dungeon itself.

The rest of the story takes place in the future, and focuses on Basch and Larsa.

That said, thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far! Frankannestein, Captain L, Laguna's Twin Sister, Kissy, and the whole lot of you: Thank you!


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